He Said, She Said (1991) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Two young reporters are constantly bickering. He's the staunch conservative, street-educated, preaching the message of common sense. She's the Ivy League liberal intellectual. A concatenation of circumstances places them into competition to take over a popular opinion column. Their viewpoints contrast so sharply that the newspaper decides to run both, side-by-side, and that gimmick is so popular with readers that the dueling columns become regular features. As time passes, a producer wonders if they can project the same electricity on the air, and that leads to a popular talk show called "He Said, She Said." Throughout all their joint successes, the two young reporters never stop bickering, but (do I really need to mention this) they also fall in love. 

Is it a breezy, sassy Tracy-Hepburn movie from the 1940s? No, but it sure sounds like one, doesn't it?

It's a 1990s romantic comedy starring Elizabeth Perkins and Kevin Bacon, and it's jazzed up by a stylistic trick. The "he said, she said" concept is extended to the movie's format as well. The film begins with their break-up, and the first half of the movie is his story of how they met, got together, and split. The second half of the movie is her rebuttal!

They do not always talk about the same incidents, because each of them had another love interest which affected the columnists' relationship in one way or another, and they dealt with those matters separately. The film's best humor, however, comes in the scenes where they have very different recollections of identical incidents.

This is a watchable romantic comedy. There are three things which, in my opinion, keep it from being a great rom-com:

1. The underlying conflict was the "same old same old." She: I want to get married. He: I'm not ready. The story's commitment to that as a central conflict made the entire exercise too routine and familiar, not to mention too old-fashioned. Both characters seemed trapped in traditional gender stereotypes which may have worked for Rock Hudson and Doris Day, but seemed quaint in the 1990s. Would a liberated 1990s Ivy League intellectual still be so hung upon that marriage issue? It seemed out of character for her.

2. Kevin Bacon was miscast. Don't get me wrong, I think Bacon is a good actor, but this role was just not right for him. The part called for him to be a womanizing, insensitive, egotistical reactionary who reformed for his true love. Unfortunately Bacon was only credible before the transformation. He still seemed like the same invulnerable, cavalier dickhead after his supposed reformation, and I was never quite persuaded that he had become a good enough guy to deserve the dream-girl. If I had been her father, I would have tried to steer her elsewhere!

3. Tracy and Hepburn would have added an extra layer of skill with the bickering dialogue, but that kind of sharp badinage was missing. The necessary sharp exchanges were too blunt and too clumsy. This was not a result of bad writing or bad acting, but the script's commitment to the dual-narrative concept. In order for the ol' Tracy/Hepburn electricity to work, both parties need to be sharp and witty and competent, and that requires an objective POV which allows them both to shine equally. Separating the narrative into two subjective POV's changed the focus of the humor, and laughs were derived from each remembering the other's fecklessness rather than their competence.

The fact that it is not a great romantic comedy doesn't mean you won't enjoy it. I watched the entire film through without getting bored or feeling the need for the fast-forward button. Celebrity nudity fans can enjoy a good look at Ms Perkins' perkies. It has a few laughs, it has some romantic moments, and it has a full-length commentary on a nicely-mastered DVD with a SRP under seven bucks!